MW Cats vs. dogs: Today's economy is tipping the scales in the great debate over which pet is better
By Andrew Keshner
'The majority - maybe even the vast majority - of requests for new homes are because of some monetary issue,' one pet foster parent says
As a pet foster parent, Leela Rice has seen a pattern recently to the reasons why people can't keep their dogs: a downsize to a place with less or no room for a dog; a move-in with relatives and a pet that won't get along with theirs; less time for walks due to longer hours at work or an extra job.
"The majority - maybe even the vast majority - of requests for new homes are because of some monetary issue," said Rice, 44, who owns two cats and three dogs and fosters dogs when she can.
Owners who need to rehome their dogs care deeply for their pets and want the best for them, she noted, but often find themselves unable to afford the associated expenses or put in the necessary time. "People are just really struggling on a lot of levels," Rice said.
Four years after "pandemic pets" offered lockdown companionship and drained animal shelters of cats and dogs, data suggest that more economical cats are gaining on dogs at a time when pet-food prices remain stubbornly high, rents are still rising and housing supply is tight. Taken together, these forces could be tipping the scales in the longstanding debate on whether cats or dogs make better pets, some pet-industry experts say.
From the archives (April 2022): Cats vs. dogs: Which pet makes better financial sense?
Rice, an attorney who lives north of Austin, Texas, started fostering dogs right before the pandemic - mostly cocker spaniels, because they get along with her other pets, as well as a Chihuahua mix, a dachshund mix and a Great Pyrenees mix. She's now fostering a cocker spaniel-French bulldog puppy named Silver.
She began noticing more foster-care requests around two years ago, she said, and it seems to take a little longer these days for her foster dogs to find forever homes.
"Adoption rates for dogs are the big issue. They are slowing down considerably," said Maggie Lynch, senior director of research and development at Austin Pets Alive, a nonprofit shelter that also helps pet owners find alternatives to surrendering their animal to a shelter.
Cats, on the other hand, appear to be in hot demand. They are cheaper to feed and easier to house - and they're outpacing dogs in shelter adoptions.
"Today, we can't keep up with cat adoptions," said Jennifer Scarlett, chief executive officer of the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Demand for dogs, especially large ones, "is pretty soft," Scarlett added.
People adopted 2.6 million cats from U.S. shelters last year, according to the nonprofit data collector Shelter Animals Count - a 14% rise from 2019 cat-adoption levels. Meanwhile, 2.2 million dogs were adopted from shelters, a 5% decline from 2019.
During 2022, as the rate of inflation increased sharply, just over half of dogs coming into shelters were being adopted, according to numbers from Shelter Animals Count. The canine-adoption rate stayed between 51% and nearly 55% over the four quarters.
That same year, the cat-adoption rate averaged nearly 65%.
It's tough to definitively say why people aren't adopting dogs at the same frequency they're adopting cats, said Stephanie Filer, executive director of Shelter Animals Count. But housing and rental policies provide some clues, she noted.
There are a few possible reasons why cat adoptions are up and shelter intakes are down, according to Filer. Landlords often impose restrictions on the breed and size of dogs allowed in rental units, but Filer has never heard of such restrictions on cats, she said - and "generally speaking, they are not at risk for noise complaints." There's also little need to pay for cat walkers or cat daycare, she added.
Other factors may influence the supply of cats in shelters, including whether there's a trap-neuter-and-return practice for feral cats in the area, Filer and Scarlett said.
But it's hard to ignore inflation's bite on pet owners' budgets.
This year, the estimated annual price of dog essentials - such as food, medicine and toys - ranges from $1,000 to $5,225, according to a report from Rover.com, a platform for pet owners to find boarding, sitters and other services. Cat owners can expect to pay between $710 and $2,865 for those necessities, the report said.
To be sure, there are far more dog owners than cat owners in the U.S. This year, an estimated 82 million U.S. households own a pet, according to the American Pet Products Association; around 58 million households have dogs and 40 million have cats, though some of those households own both.
The number of households that own either a cat or a dog declined by seven million from 2022 to 2024, according to the pet-industry trade association's estimates.
Yet this decline in pet ownership has been more pronounced for dogs since the start of the pandemic, the APPA's numbers show. Between 2020 and 2024, the number of households with dogs shrank by nearly 16%, while the number with cats shrank by 11%.
The majority of U.S. pet owners say the economy hasn't impacted their pet ownership, APPA research shows. When onetime pet owners are polled about why they don't have a pet now, they're more likely to cite the emotional weight of a pet's death than they are to mention lifestyle or financial reasons.
But the current economic picture is complex and full of contradictions, so different pet plotlines could be playing out simultaneously.
For example, the jobless rate has stayed under 4% for more than two years, the longest stretch since the 1960s. At the same time, more people are falling behind on their credit-card bills and car loans compared with one or two years earlier, as delinquencies rise to their highest point in more than a decade.
Companies like Chewy Inc. $(CHWY)$ and Petco Health & Wellness Co. Inc. $(WOOF)$ have reported cost-pinched pet owners and softening demand after the pandemic rush.
Animal shelters provide an alternate peek. It's tough to fully explain the discrepancies between adoption rates for cats and dogs, Lynch said, but housing costs, the affordability of pet food and services, and veterinary access are all pieces of the puzzle.
"If people are reluctant to adopt, something's going on," she said.
The tough housing market is tough on pets
In the 12-month span through March, nearly 55% of rental listings on Zillow (Z) allowed pets, a spokesperson for the real-estate marketplace said. That's similar to the previous 12-month period, when just over 56% of listings allowed pets.
Of course, homeownership would be a much more attractive prospect to pet owners than having to deal with landlords wary of barking dogs and pet-related property damage. But buying is a tough proposition, with mortgage rates above 7% and home prices that remain prohibitively high for many people.
Nearly 85 million U.S. households, or around two-thirds of all households, own their property, according to statistics through 2022 from iPropertyManagement. The other one-third, or more than 45 million households, are renters.
"We're pushing people to rent, and renting isn't conducive to dog ownership," Filer said.
A proposed bill in the country's most populous state aims to change that. California landlords would need a reasonable cause to forbid tenants from having pets in their rental units, according to the proposed legislation. The bill, AB 2216, advanced out of committee to the state Assembly floor earlier in April.
"When there's already a crunch and competition for limited housing units, pet owners can find their applications tossed aside," said the bill's author, Assembly member Matt Haney of San Francisco.
That said, "there are more units that will take cats than dogs," according to Haney, who chairs the California Legislative Renters' Caucus and has two cats of his own.
Since the bill's introduction, Haney has heard all sorts of stories about pet owners' housing woes. "Most pet owners don't really view being a pet owner as something they can just stop," he said. "If they are moving or going somewhere, their animal is coming with them."
AB 2216's passage would be a win for pet owners, but not all would feel its impact evenly, Haney said. "It might be harder for landlords to give a reasonable rationale why they would deny a cat. ... Dog owners often have a tougher time currently as is. Any additional consideration for dog owners may have a wider impact."
Pet chow has gotten more expensive - but cat owners pay less
Filer sees the price differential when she buys food for her American bulldog mix and pitbull mix compared with food for her two cats. Food prices for both dogs and cats have increased in recent years, but there's no question Filer is paying more to feed her combined 170 pounds of canines versus her cats, who weigh a combined 20 pounds, she said.
Cat owners will typically spend between $450 and $1,860 this year on pet food, according to Rover. Dog owners, meanwhile, will spend between $560 and $4,115.
Cat-food price hikes in recent years have also been slightly less steep. And while cat-food sales are slightly up year over year, dog-food sales are down.
The price of cat food - encompassing dry food, wet food and treats - averaged $3.50 per unit in a one-year span ending in late February and increased 9.4% year over year, according to NIQ, the consumer-analytics firm formerly known as Nielsen IQ. The price of dog food, by contrast, averaged $10.36 per unit in the same period, marking a 10.5% increase year over year.
Americans purchased slightly more cat food than they did a year earlier and less dog food, according to NIQ. While cat-food unit sales were up 0.5%, dog-food unit sales were down 4%.
Vet bills differ for Fido vs. Fluffy
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April 30, 2024 06:00 ET (10:00 GMT)
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